Friday, June 24, 2016

Heavy trading volume and turbulence across currency, equity and bond markets is expected following Britain’s historic vote on its membership of the EU on Thursday.

Traders and brokers are particularly wary that UK polls close at 10pm local time on Thursday — when the trading day ends in New York and begins in the early hours in Asia.

Sterling has been particularly sensitive to swings in opinion polls in recent weeks, and liquidity in the foreign exchange market will be a particular focus after it dried up in January 2015 when the Swiss central bank shocked traders by removing the franc’s longstanding peg to the euro.

Bank has already warned customers it may not be able to provide usual levels of pricing and liquidity in the 24 hours after polling closes on Thursday.

We closed up all our sterling positions to avoid possible liquidity crunch on any shock.